US helicopter 'crashes killing four'
The Taleban often claim to have shot down US aircraft
A US military helicopter is reported to have crashed in Pakistan after being fired on by the Taleban while on a mission inside Afghanistan.
A senior Pakistani police official said the helicopter crashed in Pakistan's south-western Baluchistan province on Sunday.
He told the BBC that the helicopter crashed near Dalbandin - one of the three airbases Pakistan has allowed US forces to use for logistical, search and rescue operations in Afghanistan.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press Agency said four US personnel were killed in the crash.
But a spokesman for the government in Islamabad, Rashid Qureshi, said that there had been no such incident.
The US Defense Department also said it had no information about any crash, and there has as yet been no statement from senior Taleban officials.
The Pakistani police official said the helicopter probably caught fire after being hit by Taleban ground-fire
On Saturday, the Pentagon denied a previous Taleban claim to have shot down a US helicopter and insisted that no US soldiers had been killed.
In the latest fighting, the Northern Alliance said it had captured the northern district of Zari from the Taleban, but had lost part of the neighbouring district of Aq Kupruk in a Taleban counter-offensive.
A Taleban spokesman has warned that their fighters are ready for a long war, and has challenged the US to launch a ground offensive.
"If they have the strength and if their soldiers are not men used to a soft life, why are they not fighting face-to-face?" Amir Khan Muttaqi asked.
Taleban 'silence'
In its briefing on Monday, the Pentagon said it believed a "substantial" number of Taleban fighters had been killed during the air strikes on their front lines in Afghanistan.
Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had no accurate casualty figures, but it had been days since Taleban positions had returned fire.
"They are hunkered down or not able to fire. This is a very positive sign," he told reporters.
However, a BBC correspondent with the Northern Alliance, observing Taleban front lines near Kabul, says anti-aircraft fire could clearly be seen over the Afghan capital during the night.
And in another sign that the US was stepping up its campaign, NBC reported that the US had started using BLU-82 "daisy cutter" bombs - the largest conventional weapon in its arsenal.
It said two of the 15,000-pound bombs - used in the Gulf and Vietnam to create instant helicopter pads and clear large minefields - were dropped on Taleban positions over the weekend.
The Pentagon has declined to comment on the report.
Warnings
The UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has meanwhile warned that killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden will not prevent further acts of terrorism being carried out by the al-Qaeda network.
He said the Saudi-born dissident "will get caught in the end", but this alone would not curtail the activities of the al-Qaeda organisation, thought to be behind the US terror attacks.
The Americans are hoping the bombing campaign will encourage the Northern Alliance to attack the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, but Admiral Stufflebeem admitted they did not know when this might happen.
The alliance said on Monday it was preparing for a large-scale offensive.
But correspondents say there are increasing doubts in Washington about the ability of the Northern Alliance forces to take advantage of the help they are getting from the Americans.
-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001